On June 24th the GSLP issued a press release putting in the public domain information, which has been in the possession of the Social Services Agency since June 2005.
Three years have gone by and nothing was done at the time, nor has it been done since, to investigate and establish the truth or otherwise of allegations which mention the presence of cocaine in residential premises managed by the Agency in whose care there are vulnerable adults.
The Agency’s failure to establish the facts and take action is a serious failure of duty which amounts to an attack on the Human Rights of the service-users entitled to care and protection.
We accuse Mr Jaime Netto of lying to Parliament when he said every incident had been investigated, we challenge the Police to explain how an allegation of the presence of cocaine, which is a prohibited substance, is not investigated by them, whether the Social Services Agency chooses to do so or not, since this is an allegation of a criminal offence being committed.
Mr Netto has not produced any evidence to contradict what we said in the press release of June.
The source of the information published by us is in a sworn statement by one of the witnesses who was willing to state this at the Tribunal Hearing under oath. It was to prevent such matters being brought out into the open that the Government went to such length and such expense to stop the Tribunal hearing from taking place.
The evidence prepared for the Tribunal would have exposed a level of neglect in the running of the service over the last decade, which in the UK would have led to severe penalties for those involved.
Moreover, the cover up of these deficiencies has been at the expense of the welfare of those under the care and protection of the Agency, and as such the affected parties should be eligible for compensation from the Government for the harm that they have been subjected to.
This evidence is in the possession of the Government and had the Tribunal proceeded they would have had an opportunity to refute it but they cannot, hence their continued silence on the question.
One witness was herself, before 2002, Manager of the Dr Giraldi Home. Her statement confirms that the suspicion of drug use by one or more employees of the agency was there, even then. The statement also gives details of incidents of violent behaviour by a member of staff against other members in the presence of the residents and in the flat which is there home. In this incident the aggressive individual was apparently under the influence of drink or drugs or both. This in fact refers to the same occasion and flat where the cocaine was apparently flushed down the toilet and a female service-user dragged out of bed to allow the employee to recover from his drunken stupor.
This statement from a second witness supports the view of the state of affairs described in the previous statement in our June press release.
The individual identified in both statements is said to have gone to UK to a Drug Rehabilitation Centre to deal with his problem and that his absence from work was covered up by recording it as leave when everyone in the Agency knew what was really happening.
It begs the question as to what someone with a serious hard drug problem is doing looking after and being responsible for vulnerable adults with disabilities and how this can have been allow to go on year after year.
If a manager is prepared to say under oath that one employee had another by the throat, was screaming abuse, and behaving as if drunk or drugged or both, should this not merit a thorough and in-depth investigation? Would such an investigation or enquiry not be in the public interest? Of course it would, if it were conducted by an outside body, with no connections in Gibraltar and with expertise in the matter as is the case in UK.
These questions remain unanswered and by his silence the minister responsible condones what allegedly has been, and may still be, happening, for all we know.
http://www.gslp.gi/Press_Release/topic.php?id=190
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